The strategy of running as a tight group for large portions of the race helped the Bishop O’Connell Knights win two significant boys cross-country championships this fall.
The most recent was a state title, coming Tuesday afternoon (Oct. 21) in Newport News when the Knights won the nine-team State Catholic Cross Country high-school crown on the flat and tight-turned 5,000-meter Newport News Park course.
The state title is the Knights’ first in many years — maybe ever — according to the school. O’Connell did not always participate in the race over the past couple of decades, and finished a distant fourth in 2024.
The Knights won this year’s title with 40 points, with defending champion Saint John Paul the Great Catholic second with 53.
“They really tried to run together as a pack, and our top three or four did that for the first mile and a half or so,” O’Connell coach Jim Connor told ARLnow.
O’Connell was led by junior individual champion Jayse Brefczynski in 16:04, with his freshman brother Landon Brefczynski second (16:18).
“Jayse started pulling away with about a mile to go and won easily,” Connor said.
Jayse Brefczynski was sick and missed last year’s meet, so he was running in the event for the first time, as was Landon.
O’Connell’s third-finishing runner was sophomore Peter Fleenor in eighth (16:55) with senior Lance Jayme ninth (17:01) and sophomore Ryan Street 20th (17:52).
“Our fifth runner [Street] finished high enough and where we needed him to be for us to hold off John Paul the Great,” Connor said.
Jayme said the Knights were confident they would contend for the championship.
“None of us had ever run the course before, but that was OK, we still did well,” Jayme said. “We pack ran the first mile and a half, then Jayse and Landon stayed together until the end and Peter, Ryan and I hung close. It’s pretty cool to be a state champion.”
Other O’Connell runners finishing in the top 50 were sophomore Rai Detton in 29th, sophomore Kyle Jayme in 31st, senior Patrick Porter in 40th and junior Ian Bradley in 44th.
The O’Connell team also ran as a tight pack earlier this season when the Knights won the Arlington County meet, with Jayse Brefczynski leading the way with the individual victory and Landon Brefczynski second. Fleenor was fourth and Lance Jayme sixth.
Coming up, the Knights would like to keep running as a pack and win two more big races:
- This coming weekend’s Washington Catholic Athletic Conference meet Saturday, Oct. 25 at Kenilworth Park in D.C.
- The Thursday, Nov. 6 Division I Virginia state private-school meet in the Charlottesville area
“It’s a fast turnover with the WCAC meet this weekend,” Lance Jayme said.
The race will be the boys team’s third in a week. On Oct. 18 the squad participated in the The Virginia Cross Country Showcase 2025 meet on the Pole Green Park course in Mechanicsville. The Knights finished eighth in the elite race, with Landon Brefczynski 19th and Jayse Brefczynski 25th.
The O’Connell girls placed sixth in the Oct. 21 state Catholic meet, with Isabel McEvoy the top runner in 29th in 22:49.
